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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

India : Why some battle dengue better

" Scientists have for the first time discovered a part of our immune system
that is involved in getting rid of dengue viruses, and also determines a
person's ability to fight off the disease. Worldwide, dengue fever
strikes roughly 50 million people every year and takes the lives of thousands,
but specific therapies or a vaccine for this
mosquito-borne illness remain
unavailable.

Today, 2.5 billion people are at risk from dengue fever and
from dengue hemorrhagic fever, a lethal complication of infection. Despite the
high infection
rates, there are currently no specific treatments for dengue fever and no
vaccine to prevent infection with the dengue virus.

Many
scientists who study the disease have been searching for ways to boost the human
immune response to dengue so that it does not gain a foothold in the body.

Researchers from Washington University, Walter Reed Army Institute of
Research and the University of Copenhagen,
Denmark, report a new finding that a part of the immune system called
mannose-binding lectin (MBL) is involved in targeting dengue viruses for
destruction.

MBL recognizes sugar molecules present on the outsides of
many different kinds of viruses and bacteria. When it finds these sugars, MBL
activates the complement system, which targets foreign materials in the body for
destruction in any of a number of cruel ways. Scientists have known that the
complement system takes a hit during dengue infection, but until now no one knew
that it also plays a role in getting rid of dengue viruses."